"And my mother? And my business? Come, we will let the tour of the world alone, now, and you can tell me how you have passed your time. Can it be possible that you have had the blues again?" When I told him that I had been able, without him, to employ myself and not to yield to ennui, and Macha had confirmed the good account, he praised me, with the same words and looks of encouragement he would have used to a child, and as if he had a perfect right to do so. It seemed to me quite natural that I should tell him frankly and minutely everything I had done that was right, and also, on the contrary, own to him, as if in the confessional, whatever I had done that might deserve his censure. The evening was so beautiful that, when the tea-tray was carried away, we remained upon the terrace, and I found the conversation so interesting that I only gradually became aware that all the sounds from the house were ceasing around us. Upon all sides arose the penetrating night perfume of flowers, the turf was drenched with heavy dew, the nightingale in a lilac bush near us was executing his roulades, stopping abruptly at the sound of our voices. The starry sky seemed to stoop close above our heads. What warned me that night had come, was the swift, heavy rush of a bat beneath the awning of the terrace, and its blind, terrified circling around my white dress. I fell back against the wall, and almost cried out, but with another dull swoop it was off again and lost in the blackness of the garden. "How I love your Pokrovski," said Sergius Mikaïlovitch, interrupting the conversation.... "One could linger for a lifetime on this terrace!" "Well," said Macha, "linger!" "Ah, yes! linger; but life--does not pause!" "Why do you not marry?" continued Macha; "you would make an excellent husband!" "Why?" he repeated, smiling. "People long ago, ceased to count me a marriageable man!" "What!" replied Macha, "thirty-six years old, and already you pretend to be tired of living?" "Yes, certainly, and even so tired that I desire nothing but rest. To marry, one must have something else to offer. There, ask Katia," he added, pointing me out with a nod "Girls of her age are the ones for marriage. For us ... our rôle is to enjoy their happiness." There was a secret melancholy, a certain tension in the tone of his voice, which did not escape me. He kept silence a moment; neither Macha nor I said anything. "Imagine now," he resumed, turning towards the table again, "if all at once, by some deplorable accident, I should marry a young girl of seventeen, like Katia Alexandrovna! That is a very good example, and I am pleased that it applies so well to the point ... there could not be a better instance." I began to laugh, but I could not at all understand what pleased him so much, nor to what it applied so well.